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Post #46 — My Final Post (November 24, 2023, written from a heavenly perspective)

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 Post #46 — My Final Post  (Written from a heavenly perspective and sent out November 24, 2023, just hours after transitioning to my final home)  Dear friends, as of today, November 24, I am now breathing celestial air—without any supplemental oxygen whatsoever! God has just called me home!! Hallelujah!! Oxygen tanks and tubes are forever gone! My lungs are now SHOUTING OUT praises to God with full capacity… and without a single trace of IPF!! What an amazing experience this has been already! Words can’t even begin to describe it!  I’ve asked my sister and able blog assistant, Ruth Ann, to send you this post in my absence. I am so very grateful to each of you for your partnership we’ve had in our journey together. What an incredible journey it has been! I trust that our partnership has been, in at least some small way, helpful to you in your walk with God. To My Family and Friends I have been deeply honored and gratified for
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Post # 45 - The Gift of Resilience

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  Post # 45 - The Gift of Resilience  (Written early November 2023, but sent out November 23, just the day before going Home) Here's a word that's been tugging at my mind recently: "resilience."  What is it? where does it come from? How does one get it? I'm calling it a "gift" --but is it? Or do we develop it? How does having resilience help us thrive? These are the questions we want to explore in this post. What is Resilience? The dictionary defines resilience as "the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness." The word r esilience  comes from two Latin words: Re,  meaning "back" and Salire, meaning "to jump or leap." So, the literal definition of the word resilient  basically means "to jump back" or "to bounce back". We all face those unpleasant or unfortunate situations in life when we've said something or committed a really stupid error that we regret--the sort of th
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Post #44 -- The Gift of Hope

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As I sit down to draft this post, trusting God for inspiration on what to write, I sense the Lord saying, "Don, write from your heart, not your head." That was a new one for me and I’m still not exactly sure what God means by all that.  But I believe He is telling me to simply write about something I’m feeling in my heart as I travel this pathway from surviving to thriving—though I do sense Him cautioning me against my usual (engineering-like) lists of bulleted ideas and Scripture verses.   After pondering this thought for a bit, the word “Hope” clearly came to mind.  So the purpose of this post is simply to share how Hope resonates in my heart and to describe how it gives me the confidence to keep going and even put a bounce into my steps.  Well, that last statement is a bit rhetorical in that I take fewer steps these days, but you know what I mean.  This simply encourages and excites me to trust Jesus even more.   WHAT IS HOPE? Some people might knock on wood or cross
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Post #43 -- The Gift of Perseverance

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I confess there are times when I almost tell myself, “This is just too tough to handle,” and want to give up.  But immediately a thought from 2 Corinthians 4:16 crashes into my brain, “Therefore, we do not give up,” and I sense a new pump of adrenaline keeping me going.  Is “perseverance” a gift from God?  I’m not certain, but it definitely seems that at the right times God gives us what we need to persevere in running the journey—not out of our own strength, but out of His.  The purpose of this post is to ruminate on the thought of perseverance and discuss how this helps us thrive.  Maybe “ruminate” is a new word for you.  I remember my dad talking to me about chewing on God’s Word and using the cows on our farm as an example.  You see, cows eat grass, then typically lie down and continue chewing their slightly chewed and swallowed cud.  (Cud is the portion of food returned from a cow’s first stomach to her mouth to be chewed for the second time).  Cows have four stomachs.  Their cud
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Post #42 -- The Gift of Music

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I'm finding that God often meets my deepest needs primarily through three different avenues—through His Word, through friends and family, and through music.   I’ve discussed at length in previous posts the blessings and value of constantly being “wrapped” in God’s Word (Psalm 119:114 TPT). I’ve also discussed how God is using the friendship and support of family and friends to keep me going. On occasion, I’ve included a song in a post that was encouraging me, but without expressing just how meaningful that particular song was to me.   Hence, the purpose of this post is to identify and enjoy again some of these songs that have been encouraging me and drawing me closer to the heart of God. Actually, this could be more for my benefit than yours. But I welcome you to join with me in this delightful journey, as you wish. I realize that everyone’s choice of songs differs. I am simply identifying a few songs that have been especially encouraging to me during the last several years. Some
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